Creation Entertainment held a big official Star Trek convention in San Francisco over the weekend headlined by Leonard Nimoy with a bunch of big Trek stars including Nichelle Nichols, Nana Visitor, Rene Auberjonois, Connor Trinneer, Dominic Keating and more. See below for a report plus lots of photos from the weekend.

A Continuing Birthday Celebration

Most Star Trek fans associate San Francisco, California as being the future home for Starfleet headquarters, but for the last weekend S.F. played host to the an official Star Trek Convention, held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Creation had billed this convention as "a celebration of the 45th anniversary" and this anniversary would prove to be a memorable one for the fans in attendance. Today TrekMovie presents a quick summary of what went down, along with tons of pictures from the event.

TrekMovie’s coverage starts on Saturday, which was the biggest day of the con where attendance was pushed to the limits with a capacity crowd. The day started with a standing room only appearance by Nichelle Nichols who recounted tales of the impact the original Star Trek had and is still having upon her life. The original Uhura was typically gracious and wonderfully enthusiastic with the equally appreciative fans who treated her like Trek royalty that she is.

Nichols was followed by Gwynyth Walsh and Barbara March, better known as the Duras sisters B’Tor and Lursa from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The San Francisco con was the first Creation event where the pair appeared in character, complete with full Klingon make-up and wardrobe. The two played off each other humorously and also recounted tales of their time with Trek, including the infamous story of when Gene Roddenberry inquired if their Klingon Kleavage was the real thing or a special effect.

Of course the biggest draw for Saturday was to see the living legend, Leonard Nimoy. There was a palatable sense of anticipation and excitement leading to thunderous applause and an extended standing ovation when Creation co-founder Adam Malin introduced Nimoy. to a thunderous standing ovation that was sustained for an extended period of time. Leonard Nimoy giddily jumped on the stage from backstage and was noticeably pleased and humbled by the deafening reaction.

Mr. Nimoy then proceeded to chronicle his life and influences through words and photographs. He held the audience in rapt attention as he recounted the highlights of life as an actor and as a man. Since Nimoy is also a celebrated and accomplished photographer, he took the time to also tell of his experiences packaging the images he had shot for his book, "Secret Selves". For many in attendance, there was no doubt that Nimoy’s appearance alone was worth the price of
admission. Unfortunately for anyone hoping for spoilers regarding his upcoming appearance on Fringe, the subject didn’t come up.

While Saturday was a treat, Sunday proved to be even more entertaining. Deep Space Nine veterans Nana Visitor and Rene Auberjonois introduced what they hoped would be an ongoing treat for fans. They decided to showcase what they had entitled, "Cross Our Hearts: Poems and Prose" which turned out to be a riveting displays of the power these two actors have with their vocal and facial control. Indeed, there was nary a sound as fans were dazzled by their impressive ability to dominate an audience in a live setting.

As brilliant as Auberjonois and Visitor were, the surprise of the convention turned out to be Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating who had literally electrified the fans with their incredible sense of humor and timing. Fans who were lucky enough to have attended Saturday night’s special events after hours had already knew that Dominic Keating is an incredibly funny stand-up comedian. And together he and his Star Trek: Enterprise co-star literally had the entire hall doubling over with laughter as they told tales of "Enterprise", fandom and actor appearance confusion. The two were so scintillating that one wonders why don’t have a dedicated live show touring the nation!

This convention was an entertaining warm-up to the much anticipated Las Vegas convention that will be arriving in August. I also suspect that Keating and Trinneer might just steal that show also!

And here are some more photos from the Star Trek San Francisco Con.

Costume contest

Costume contest

Fan as Nero

Sisko look-alike with some Andorian fans

Gwynyth Walsh and Barbara March

Barbara March

Alan Scarfe (TNG: Admiral Mendek)

Barry Jenner (DS9: Admiral William Ross)

Bobby Clark (TOS: Gorn)

For even more photos from the weekend, here is a slide show from photographer Stephen Lee.

Unfortunately both of us missed Friday, the first day of the con, which featured appearances by Grace Lee Whitney (Star Trek’s Janice Rand), Eric Menyuk (TNG’s Traveler) and Jane Wiedlin (Go-Go’s singer who had a cameo in Star Trek IV). If anyone has photos from Friday, please send in a tip via the TrekMovie tipline (right column).

Oscar Benjamin is a professional photographer and columnist who writes three columns on entertainment, cosplay and horror for Examiner.com. You can also follow Oscar on Facebook.

Oscar seems to have had a great seat judging by the excellent photos. No wonder he wrote with such enthusiasm!

I wonder if the average attendee had as good a time. I am sorry to say my 30 year experience with these Creation cons has been generally disappointing, with standard seating usually 50 feet away, eternal autograph lines and rushed meet and greet/photo ops with no opportunity at all for meaningful interaction with the cast. The only alternative is to sell an bodily organ or two and pay astronomical “package” prices. To make matters even worse, they e-mail you your tickets (cost to them: zero) and still charge you a $22 shipping fee.

Press pass is a pretty good seat, you get to sit on the floor in front of stage. Not very comfy though, and sometimes the guests get pissed. John DeLancie got all huffy with Oscar and I in Vegas last year saying “this is feeling like a press conference” or something like that.

sounded like it was fun….yes Dominic and Conner are very entertaining together….Saw them at the 40th Anniv. Vegas Con and they were funny as hell…Rene shouldnt have that beard, makes him look older than he really is, Nana looks very energetic as usual… Man just saw Shatner with Levar Burton and Walter Koenig….Gotta give credit to the SHAT for listening to Walter and admitting he may not have been paying attention to the supporting actors back then and he even apologized twice and admitted it was hurting him inside to think he wasnt being fair with all the actors back then….Wish the interview was twice as long I think it was very Cathartic for Walter to get that off his chest and force Shatner to think about it….No mention was made of Koenigs sons death but that may be a touchy subject would be understandable if he might not have wanted to talk about that…. If SHAT MY DAD SAID does survive to next season sounds like Walter will be a guest on it hahah…. Koenig also mentioned his 4 part graphic novel(shat kept saying comic book haah) about Vampires called things to come….all in all this interview was a nice momentary relief from all the sadness and madness going on in Japan now after the horrifying quake and tsunami….Feel very bad for all the people that lost family members, some whole families….hope ne pray they all get help asap and that they shut down those nuclear reactors…cant believe they… Read more »

As much as I’m a really big Go-Go’s fan, Jane Weidlin appearing on a video screen in the background of a few seconds of “Star Trek IV” really is too much of a stretch to qualify her as a guest at a Star Trek convention, isn’t it?

I was at the convention and had a great time, Nichelle looks awesome still. I had the gold package ticket and was able to meet all the guests and see everything over all three days.
Seeing Nimoy up close was a dream come true for me, his presentation was fantastic. The price of the Gold Package was nothing compared to everything I got, including autographs from all the guests which I’m loving right now.